Film Review: The Blackout (2009)

And things we’re going so well…. gosh what does a mean rouge creature in a condo have in common with a bunch of yuppies. No its not a comedy even though portions will make you laugh and not for humor value. It’s Christmas Eve, the city goes dark, and the few remaining tenants of The Raven wood find themselves trapped in their building. And they are not alone.

REVIEW:

I had some hopes for this film even though it sports a Feast rippoff poster. Well Feast was a cool film, but there’s is no comparison between the 2. It looks like they have tried some re-designs but as a market those aren’t cutting it quite either.

The time is now or perhaps present and seismic activity has been going off the charts in frequency lately. It’s Christmas Eve and an excuse to gather festive folks on screen so that they can be killed off one by one later. The main focal family is the rather sterile and dysfunctional family called the Pierces. They are throwing a get-together. The lineup goes: Daniel , Ethan, Elizabeth, Dylan and Ashley Pierce. The rest of the cast is …well …forgettable. I think that was the point also as most of them were hired to be killed per creature slaying in one form or another.

Now while the quakes don’t manage to knock much over somehow they have released some age old organism from the opened fissures. These things are a bit of a mollusk and a tiny armadillo kind of concoction. For the benefit of the movie though they grow at a rapidly increased rate into a alien looking creatures that sport a lethal weapon of a tail. Try maybe a lesser version of Spiderman’s Venom foe combined with a scorpion like appendage. The first thought I had was if I were a creature that grew overnight from a mollusk I wouldn’t have much of a conscience either as far as killing goes.

Well I was right. Bing bang and slice, these creatures walk around and kill people. Though in this case I’m gonna say that most of these yuppie tools in the film are not shedding many tears to viewers. The story or back story is sort of a “lets see how many troubled relationships we can fit into one room” kind of thing. Yunno….kind of like someone let a soap opera script onto the set. I started re titling this film in my head as “Terror strikes in Yuppie Condo” or maybe “There’s a monster in our Penthouse and its killing our buzz” – Take your pic

Now it deserves being mentioned that the script was absolutely as clique and cookie cutter as anything I’ve heard before. There was no star, no dynamic hero, no reason to go on watching but I did. At least I would see a few heads get clamped off by scorpion scissor tails.

Directed by Robert David Sanders is what I’m calling a first outing. I think because of this the film was maybe a bit rushed to fit a specific studio need. The premise is so “done that” that I wouldn’t think over wise. But hey some folks just like monster films. I do as well. The good news is the story picks up in the 3rd act as more of these creatures start showing up and taking folks out.

I really want to say this was god awful but I’m not. I just didn’t think it was worthy of any lasting longevity in the horror circles. It has a “decent” creature or maybe “creatures”….that bring the points up however the story was trite and too convenient of a script to deserve any high fives from me. Lines like “It had a big tail and tentacles” seemed …I don’t know…MEH

I’ve read other reviews and some folks like it, but when you’ve seen as many films as I have you start marking off all the derived factors till there nothing left to enjoy. I did however like 1 scene especially. This was the scissor tail to face kill which was pretty awesome. Take it for what its worth and don’t look back.